LOSERS^509
shipments. That may seem like little, but remember, two thirds of
these oil revenues, as well as other export income, go to pay interest
on the debt. (The oil, in other words, is mortgaged, and reserves are
dwindling fast.)^32 Again, Algeria could, like any other sovereign
country, tell its creditors to get lost. But it needs to borrow more, if
only to feed itself. The IMF has offered the usual "structural
adjustment" financing: We will pay you to change your ways. The
Algerian government has accepted with alacrity: We will change our
ways. Besides, we owe so much, a litde more can't hurt.
French-educated Algerian observers have compared the country to
the grasshopper of La Fontaine's fable:
Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud?...
Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.What were you doing when it was warm ?...
I sang, I hope you don't mind.^23Fortunately for Algeria, the IMF is not so hard and exigent as La
Fontaine's ant: "You sang, eh? I like that. Well, now dance."
It won't be easy for Algeria to change. State socialism is not only a
mode of production; it is a symbol and legacy of the revolution, an
"irrevocable commitment" (to cite the original constitution), an
egalitarian ideal, the banner under which Algeria has played a major
role in Third World political movements.
In the last few years, the country has faltered and festered. Almost
three quarters of the young men from seventeen to twenty-three
years of age are unemployed. These are the "wall people," so called
because they have nothing to do but lean against a wall and watch
the street go by. They are a pool of resentment, brooders of dark
fantasy, bomb and gun fodder. Civil war has killed more than sixty
thousand people. Untimely death is never pleasant, but rebels in
Algeria have gone out of their way to be cruel, dispatching victims
whenever possible by cutting their throat. This saves bullets and
supposedly brings the killer nearer to God.^34
Much of the death has been random, the victims innocent
passersby, many of them women and children. But Islamist terrorists
have particularly targeted "shameless women" and key personnel:
trained jurists and bureaucrats, foreign technicians, intellectual
leaders. In this way, they roll back any progress toward freedom of
thought and gender equality. Outsiders are particularly vulnerable: a